Vapiano, Bethesda MD

On a sunny Saturday, we took our dog for a family lunch at Vapiano Bethesda since I heard good things from my friends. They have very nice outdoor seating area with wooden table and benches, so we just picked a sunny spot and sat ourselves down.

customer #1 waiting for food

As soon as I walked through the door, the hostess greeted me and handed me a 'chip card' (is that what it's called?) She explained that you basically order at the different food stations, swipe the card there and pick up a pager, and your food will be ready for pickup when the pager goes off.

we each got a 'chip card'

My husband ordered some type of pasta with bacon bits and I ordered the pesto chicken pizza. I then proceeded to order macchiato at the bar. The macchiato was excellent! The girl at the bar sorta mumbled that I picked the most difficult drink to make, but she still made it for me. I'm definitely ordering this again when I go back next time.

macchiato

After I took a million pictures of my dog, the pager went off. The waitress actually delivered the food to our table to our surprise. As far as the pasta goes, you can pick different types of pasta (spaghetti, linguine, penn, etc) and also you can create your own pasta and picked your own ingredients. We are really not the creative type when we go out to eat, so we just ordered the combination listed on the menu. My thinking was, why waste efforts to create your dish when you go out to eat? If I wanted to create a dish I could just do that at home! Well, maybe that's just me, but I'm the '#1' type of person (example: #1 meal at McDonald's). Speaking of which, I dislike (hate is such a strong word) waiting in drive-through line listening to people order the 'Can I have a big mac without onions, extra lettuce, no ketchup, blah blah....'. I guess it's a good thing fast food restaurant are so accommodating, but at the same time they are also encouraging people to be difficult and picky on what they eat! I mean, it's okay to have special orders but I've actually heard moms ordering for their kids and it takes 3-4 sentences to complete a special order for a hamburger. Really?? It's a hamburger!

Okay, back to food. Here's what we ordered, the pasta was okay, nothing spectacular though. The pizza was good, but I don't think I'd miss it much either. So in conclusion, Vapiano looks real pretty, has good concepts, food makes the cut, but I won't be going back just for the food though. I do love the nice outdoor area setup, so maybe I'll stop by when I take my dog out again on the weekend!